Marketing Articles

Marketing During the Holiday Season

This coming holiday season, retail stores are bracing for drastic reductions in consumer spending. Current economic conditions have led to a decrease in consumer confidence, causing individuals to be more cautious with their extra income as the holidays quickly approach. To compensate for the anticipated decline of sales, retailers must devise creative and unique ways of selling merchandise both online and offline to make it through the end of the year.

Online purchases tend to peak during the first week of December following a period of steady increase; as a result, retailers should begin incorporating holiday terms into keyword phrases in the paid and organic search campaigns following Thanksgiving to attract those hot prospects who are looking for deals as the holiday shopping season takes off. These creative and festive keywords may even suggest alternative uses for products or gifts that consumers may not have considered and will drive more unique visitors to retailers’ websites. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, consumers tend to shop more in brick-and-mortar locations, and therefore retailers must not forget the importance of maintaining consumer in-store experiences, and traditional in-store promotions in generating sales from offline shoppers.

Over the years, consumers have tended to shop for holiday gifts throughout November and during the week before Christmas, with a drop in consumer spending during the first few weeks of December. Marketers must keep this in mind and make sure that promotions are being offered to appeal to those individuals looking for last-minute purchases. Furthermore, retailers must ensure that the moment an individual expresses interest in a product online, he/she is given an opportunity to purchase that item. These strategies will generate impulse buys and also appeal to the immediate need of last-minute holiday shoppers to find easy-to-purchase and affordable gifts.

When marketing during the holiday season, retailers should recognize the trend in the amount of product research that consumers conduct online before making a purchase. Beginning as early as Halloween, shoppers are scouting out gift ideas and comparison shopping. Therefore, marketers would surely benefit by implementing year-round strategies and campaigns to develop long-term customer relationships, communicating Holiday specials during the the key holiday shopping periods listed above.

The integration of creative online and offline marketing strategies has clear implications for retailers attempting to protect against the decline in consumer spending during the holiday season. By expanding keywords to include holiday terms, ensuring ease of purchase both online and in a traditional store, and executing year-round social media campaigns that build relationships with customers, marketers can survive the holidays with a bit more cheer than they may have originally anticipated. 

By  quickly and effectively implementing changes to your online marketing campaigns, the team at Horizon Marketing Group can help drive traffic to both your websites and physical locations. Ring in the new year with your cash register and contact us today! Cha-Ching!